


From grain of the marrow and the river-bed grains

by skieswideopen



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Background Character Death, Dark Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 16:09:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21164417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skieswideopen/pseuds/skieswideopen
Summary: Great sex or not, Tony wasn't expecting help to emerge from this particular quarter.





	From grain of the marrow and the river-bed grains

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Evandar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evandar/gifts).

> "Background character death" in this case refers to Rhodey's death prior to the beginning of the story.
> 
> Title courtesy of Sylvia Plath's "A Lesson In Vengeance."

The world was pain, and Tony was at the heart of it. He twisted and writhed beneath fists and feet, rolling from one blow to the next, no longer sure where the pain ended and he began. Overhead, blinding white lights illuminated the room like an operating theatre, revealing every flinch and bruise for his tormentors' entertainment.

Mostly they left him on the ground to kick, but once in a while someone would haul him to his feet and hold him up for a couple of blows to his chest and stomach. Never higher. They were all careful to stay away from his head, apart from the occasional open-handed slap during the interrogation phase, before the real pain began.

They'd moved past interrogation for today.

A sharp-toed boot connected with his ribs and Tony screamed, voice harsh in his own ears. He curled in tighter, pulling up his legs in a desperate attempt to protect himself, and then screamed again as the same boot found its way through his defenses to strike his groin.

There was laughter from the men around him. The pace and force of the blows began to slow. Either they'd had enough for now or else they'd decided he'd had enough. A few more prods and they filed out of the room, still laughing. The last one out shut off the lights, leaving Tony sprawled on the floor in the safe, comforting darkness.

He'd given up trying to figure out how long it had been since they'd taken him. It was too hard in the dark, with nothing but meals and interrogations to measure the time by and no way of knowing how often either happened--whether it was twice a day or once every few days. He thought he'd been here for days or maybe weeks, but not months. It couldn't have been longer, he told himself, because otherwise someone would have come for him. Someone would have rescued him. And then he'd remember all over again that there was no one to come, because his team had abandoned him, abandoned their posts, and Rhodey had died fighting something he should never have had to fight, and Tony himself had pushed Pepper away, hard, for her own safety. Oh, other people would notice he was gone, of course, but who, besides maybe Happy or the kid, would make a serious attempt to find him?

He wasn't sure whether or not to hope for a rescue attempt by Happy and Peter. He wanted to be rescued, desperately. But an enemy that had managed to capture Tony Stark had to be pretty damn impressive, and Peter was just a kid and Happy…Happy didn't even have Rhodey's benefit of armour, for all the good that had done Rhodey in the end.

Tony had escaped in Afghanistan. He'd find a way to escape here too.

He drifted in and out of consciousness for a while, too sore to move. There was nowhere to move to anyway--no mattress or blanket or chair. Just the unforgiving floor and the darkness. Eventually he heard the clank that indicated something, usually food, had been shoved through the slot at the bottom of the door. Tony forced himself to his hands and knees and carefully felt his way over. He hurt too much to have much of an appetite, but keeping his strength up seemed like something he should try to do. If Happy or the kid did make it through--or if Fury decided that maybe he owed Tony something after all--he wanted to be capable of helping them, or at least of not passing out.

He groped around until he found a plastic bowl and a large bottle of water beside it, taking care not to knock either over. He'd made that mistake once and had suffered for it. Slowly he pushed himself up into a sitting position, wincing at the pain in his ribs, and lifted the bowl into his lap. A cautious inspection revealed the contents to be some sort of lukewarm mush. He began methodically shovelling it into his mouth with his fingers, swallowing each bite quickly so he didn't have to taste it and trying hard not to think about what it might be.

When he wasn't sleeping or being questioned, Tony spent a good chunk of his time thinking about ways to escape: false answers that he could give to the interrogator that would be persuasive enough to get them to move him to a new location, or ways to get a message out to someone using whatever he could steal from the guards, or, in his more fanciful moments, ways that he could overpower the half-dozen or so men they always sent and make a break for it down the hall. None of the plans had proven workable yet, but he kept trying, stumbling against the guards to search their pockets and trying out different lies on the interrogator to see what stuck.

When he tired of plotting, he turned to fantasizing. Most of his fantasies consisted of vivid visualizations of exactly what he was going to do to his captors after he escaped. Steel-toed boots tended to figure heavily into those scenarios.

Occasionally he'd let himself remember something happy instead--some memory of Rhodey or Pepper or Vision or Bruce that was as much pain as pleasure but that at least reminded him of who he'd been. Who he was.

Even less often, his mind would drift to other things. The hot climatologist he'd picked up at that save-the-earth fundraiser who'd ended up staying for three days straight, the two of them barely leaving his room. His college lab partner who'd offered blowjobs in exchange for Tony doing all the work. Dark hair and clever fingers and a velvet voice offering to soothe his pain with blood. He had no desire to follow any of those memories through to their conclusion, but the build-up was a good distraction.

Beneath all of it--every memory, every fantasy, every _moment_\--was the constant thrum of fear.

His next two meals were also bowls of unidentifiable mush, leading him to wonder if they'd purchased it in bulk from somewhere. Maybe there was a e-store out there specializing in kidnapping and torture supplies: everything you need to keep your victim alive and miserable.

He was in the middle of a pleasant daydream featuring one of his chief tormentors and a pair of pliers when the door opened again and light flooded the room. Tony squeezed his eyes shut, recoiling from the sudden brightness. His heart fluttered with a mix of dread and relief. Pain was coming--pain was always coming--but at least he could stop wondering when.

He heard the familiar clatter of metal chairs being set down nearby, then rough hands yanked him up and deposited him on a hard seat. He forced his eyes open, still squinting against the light. In the chair across from him sat the interrogator--always the same one, his round face and bland grey suits now as familiar to Tony as the beatings and the darkness and the back of his own hand. Tony had nicknamed him the Accountant, both for the suits and for his fussy manner.

Behind the Accountant stood Pointy-boots, who somehow managed to loom menacingly over Tony despite being a good six feet away. The guy could teach a class in non-verbal threats. So far, so normal, in the new horrible-normal sort of way that characterized his life these days. And then Tony's eyes adjusted a little more and he noticed that Pointy-boots looked even more creepily pleased than usual. His gaze slid down to Pointy-boots's hands, where he was carrying what was apparently a brand new toy: a whip, long and black and painful-looking. Tony's stomach lurched. It wasn't the first time someone had brought an implement along--Tony still bore a pattern of shallow cuts from a recent encounter with a knife--but a whip seemed somehow more…demeaning.

He must have let his expression slip because Pointy-boots smirked and snapped the whip in the air. Tony looked away, face impassive, and settled his gaze on the Accountant, determined not to give Pointy-boots the satisfaction of a further reaction. From the corner of his eye, he could see the usual gang hanging out by the door, presumably there in case he decided to run and somehow made it past the Accountant and Pointy-boots. And the whip.

"Mr. Stark," began the Accountant, "I hope you're feeling more cooperative today." And they were off.

The questions were the same ones he always asked. How did this piece of Stark technology work? How had he developed that? Did of know of any organization capable of doing this? How about that?

From what he was asking, Tony figured whoever was behind this was a corporate competitor, a government agency, or a terrorist organization. Which didn't narrow things down a whole lot, but at least he was fairly sure it wasn't personal.

He answered as he always did: with lies and evasions and half-truths, all of them buried under a deep layer of sarcasm. They had a kind of rhythm now. The Accountant would ask a question, Tony would mouth off, and then the Accountant or Pointy-boots would scowl or threaten him or inflict some sort of minor pain. Today the threats tended to involve prominent display of Pointy-boots's whip, which Tony could tell he was dying to use. Hell, he'd probably be disappointed if Tony actually started answering their questions honestly.

Past experience had taught him that the Accountant had only two facial expressions, no expression and mild disappointment, but Tony could tell when he was reaching the end of his rope; something in the set of his mouth gave it away. That time was fast approaching today, and when that happened--his gaze flitted involuntarily to the whip.

Would it hurt more or less than his previous sessions? Surely it couldn't be as bad as being repeatedly kicked. Or sliced open.

Pointy-boots caught Tony's gaze and his lips curled in a smile that promised pain. Lots of pain, and soon. Tony cursed mentally. He'd been doing so well in the show-no-fear game. Or was it better to let his fear through a bit? Would Pointy-boots be satisfied more quickly that way?

Yeah, no. Pointy-boots seemed like the type who would want his full measure of blood no matter what Tony did. So why make it better for him?

The Accountant's expression was fixed firmly on the mildly disappointed end of the spectrum now. With a sigh, he stood up, shaking his head regretfully. "It would be so much easier for you if you would just answer my questions, Mr. Stark," he said as he pulled his chair away to make room for Pointy-boots. "Perhaps next time we'll make more progress."

Pointy-boots stepped forward immediately, face alight with pleasure, like someone had just handed him a lifetime's worth of combined Christmas and birthday gifts all at once. He jerked Tony to his feet with the hand that wasn't carrying the whip, holding him tightly as one of the members from the milling-around-the-door gang approached carrying what looked like some sort of shackles.

Tony pulled away sharply from Point-boots, resisting as a matter of principle--and because he hoped it would disguise his sudden, uncontrollable shaking--but Pointy-boots had a firm grip on his arm, and then shackles-guy was there and soon Tony was facing a wall, his wrists bound and strung over his head, shackles attached to a hook that had somehow escaped his notice until now. Apparently that was what happened when you spent most of your day in total darkness.

As Pointy-boots and his assistant checked their work, Tony made a deal with himself: no screaming before the third blow. If he could hold out until three, he'd count it a victory. He would have made it five, but with the bruises from his last beating still fresh on his back, he thought that might be asking too much of himself. Plus, the whip looked nasty.

The Accountant, he noticed, was standing in the corner, where he would have a good view of the show. That was unusual. The interrogator didn't typically stick around for this part. Measuring Tony's reaction to a different form of torture? Or just a pervert who got off on watching guys get whipped?

Behind him, Pointy-boots was stretching out the lead-up, alternating between cracking the whip in the air and sliding it along Tony's back. Tony wished he could stop shaking. He was pretty sure the guy fell into the pervert category and he hated giving him more material.

Pointy-boots let the whip slide off Tony's back one last time and then stepped back. Tony braced himself, knowing what was coming, once again torn between _not yet_ and _get it over with_. The shaking, oddly enough, chose that moment to finally stop.

This time when the whip cracked, it was followed by a bright line of acid pain down his back.

Tony gasped but didn't cry out, breathing through the pain the way women in labour were always encouraged to do in the movies. If they could do it, he could too. He counted in his head. One. Two more, and he could yell.

The second strike fell close beside the first, and he nearly let out a whimper, biting it back just in time. It felt as if he'd developed extra nerve endings, his skin sensitized beyond belief. Two. Maybe he could make it to four if he really tried.

He waited for the third strike, time stretching out for an endless, agonizing moment...and then there was a heavy thud and the screaming began.

Tony twisted in his shackles, trying frantically to catch a glimpse of what was going on behind him as the screams mounted. He really didn't want to die like this, chained to a wall, helpless, and not even at the hands of the people who'd managed to kidnap him.

He heard several shots behind him and and some crashing sounds, like bodies being hurled across the room. There was one particular high-pitched scream that he recognized with satisfaction as coming from Pointy-boots, and then pale hands were reaching for the Accountant, who had shrunk into the corner as if it could somehow conceal his presence. A moment later, the owner of the hands stepped into view--Loki, in full battle armour, face incandescent with rage. It turned out the Accountant had a third facial expression in his repertoire: absolute terror. As Loki grabbed him, he began babbling, eyes wild, and then Loki's hand touched his forehead and the interrogator slid down the wall and into unconsciousness.

Loki turned to Tony, eyes still bright with anger.

"Hey," Tony croaked weakly. "Guess I missed date night, huh?"

His thing with Loki--Tony had never bothered trying to label it--had begun exactly eight days after Rhodey's funeral and two days after Tony had pushed Pepper away for the last time. Tony had woken badly hungover, ready to chase his headache and everything else away with another drink, only to discover that Loki, whom Thor had assured them was thoroughly dead, was waiting in the penthouse with something better.

In the beginning it had been purely a business arrangement. Loki had information about who had brought in the aliens that had killed Rhodey; Tony had resources that Loki needed in order to take care of them. Tony hadn't been under any illusions that Loki was acting out of some sort of altruistic impulse. No doubt he was benefiting from the arrangement in a dozen different ways. And yeah, Pepper and Rhodey would have disapproved. But he'd confirmed that Loki's intel was solid, and Loki hadn't presented any obvious threat to Earth--or at least not an immediate one--and Tony couldn't bring himself to care about anything else. Loki promised vengeance. Tony wanted to watch them burn.

The nature of their partnership demanded a certain amount of regular communication. Discussions of strategy slowly drifted into extended comparisons of science and magic, mixed with a good amount of flirtatious banter. Tony wasn't really surprised when things went past flirtation. When Loki lightly caressed Tony's face and then leaned in for a kiss that lit up Tony's body like an electric current, the whole thing seemed kind of inevitable, like they'd finally reached the destination they'd been heading toward since that first exchange in Tony's tower. Plus sex turned out to be a great way to kill time while waiting to put their plans for vengeance into motion and an even better way to celebrate when those plans were successful.

The thing that did surprise him was that Loki kept coming back after they finished destroying the HYDRA cell that had ultimately been responsible for Rhodey's death. It didn't happen terribly often, but from time to time, Tony would arrive home to find Loki waiting for him. Post-partnership sex also turned out to be great, and Tony had even started to grasp some of the organizing principles of magic.

Loki didn't talk much about his day-to-day life during these visits, which Tony suspected was largely because he didn't want Thor to find out where he was, but he didn't give the impression of someone who was living a particularly exciting and fulfilling life. Tony thought it over, decided he was okay with being a distraction from boredom if it meant he got to experience Loki's mouth on his cock, and didn't kick him out. He didn't let himself think about anything else he might be getting out of it, denial seeming the wiser course in this particular situation. The only feeling Tony allowed himself acknowledge besides lust was relief that he had one person in his life whom his enemies were unlikely to be able to touch. Loki, he assumed, felt the same way about him--a convenient source of amusing company and occasional release. Someone to be at ease with, for as long as their truce held.

Nothing about any of it had suggested that _Loki_ would be the one to track Tony down and rescue him. Nothing had suggested Loki cared enough to bother. Certainly nothing had prepared Tony for Loki to snarl, "They dared," when he caught sight of Pointy-boots's handiwork on Tony's back, and then to step forward and gently, gently release Tony's hands from the shackles. Tony tried to stand on shaking legs and found they couldn't support him. He reached out automatically to steady himself on Loki, who responded by lifting Tony up as easily as if he were a child and cradling him in his arms, seemingly unconcerned by what Tony suspected had to be a first-class reek, regular bathing not having been on the menu of options offered by his hosts.

From his new vantage point, Tony could see the prone forms of his former guards scattered around the room, many of them twisted in unnatural positions. He couldn't tell how many were still breathing and found he didn't care. He was pretty sure Loki had left the Accountant alive, which should be enough to figure out who had arranged the whole thing, and it wasn't like the rest of them were exactly innocent bystanders.

Although, he probably ought to let Loki know that he needed the Accountant to stay alive or Loki might torture the guy to death before Tony got the chance to question him. "You'll come back for him, right?" he said, nodding toward the figure slumped in the corner. "Gotta find out who set this up." His voice nearly gave out on the last words and he realized suddenly how exhausted he was, like the weight of his entire ordeal had come crashing down on him all at once.

"Rest," Loki said, still surprisingly gentle. He was already moving toward the door, stepping over bodies as he went. "I give you my word that no one bearing responsibility for this will escape their just deserts."

Tony let his head slump against Loki's shoulder and closed his eyes. He really was tired. "Just don't go having all the fun without me," he managed, words slurring as his tongue protested the effort.

"I wouldn't dare dream of it," came the dry reply, and then darkness descended again.

***

Tony dreamed he was in a cave. He thought he was dreaming. Surely no cave in the real world looked like this: shadows dancing on crystal walls veined with gold, the roof overhead cathedral-high, spotted with points of lights like a blanket of distant stars. He could hear the crackle of a fire somewhere, and when he felt the ground beneath him, he discovered he was lying on soft fur.

Or maybe he wasn't dreaming, because he couldn't seem to keep his eyes open. Surely he shouldn't be this tired in a dream? A hand touched his face soothingly and he slid back into sleep.

The next time he opened his eyes, it was to the sound of Loki's voice encouraging him to drink. Groggily, Tony sat up, leaning against Loki's steadying hand, and sipped obediently from the cup held to his lips--something sweet and cold. He realized distantly that he was burning up. Some sort of infection from the knife or the whip, he thought. Maybe this whole thing was a hallucination brought on by fever. That would explain the walls and the fur. And Loki.

Maybe he was still back there, still hanging on the wall--he didn't let himself pursue the thought further. Instead, when the cup was empty, he lay back down, turning on his side so that he could see the fire. He didn't try to talk. He didn't want the illusion spoiled, if that's what it was. Loki didn't seem to mind. He remained kneeling beside Tony, stroking his hair until he drifted off.

Other dreams infiltrated Tony's sleep. Sometimes he was back at Stark Tower, looking down over the city with a drink in hand. Sometimes he was in Afghanistan, realizing what he'd done. Sometimes he fought beside his former companions and sometimes against them. Sometimes he dreamed of lying in the cave, picking out imaginary constellations from among the slowly drifting stars. Once he dreamed that a great black wolf padded in and curled up at his back. Another time he dreamed of bounding over plains of ice, following a scent that lay before him like a trail of bright blood in the snow.

Whenever he woke, Loki was there, encouraging Tony to drink or to eat. Once in a while he'd coax Tony to his feet and they'd circle the cave slowly, Tony leaning heavily on Loki's arm. Tony tried to ask him where they were and how long they'd been here, but his tongue was clumsy and couldn't form the words.

The dreams continued to come: Tony was back on the wall, writhing beneath Pointy-boots's whip. There was no rescue this time, no one to grab his tormentor's arm mid-strike and toss him aside like a rag doll. Instead the attack went on and on, blow after vicious blow falling across Tony's back and ass and legs until his body was nothing but fire and pain. He woke screaming, striking out blindly around him until his fist connected with something solid, and then he stopped, panting, as he recognized where he was. An arm tightened around his chest, and he realized that Loki was lying flush behind him, holding him close.

"Sorry," he gasped, heart still pounding. It was a hell of a thank you, attacking his rescuer in his sleep.

He felt Loki shift behind him and then the whisper of warm breath against his ear. "I will kill them all," Loki said, voice low and deadly. "_We_ will kill them all. We'll leave them in a dark pit, immersed in their own stench, and then bring them up one by one and pluck out their nails and their eyes and finally their tongues, so that they can't scream as we whip them to shreds. We will disembowel them while they still live and then I will summon four pegasi to fly in four different directions and tear them to pieces. We'll tie them down beneath the open sky and apply hot brands until not an inch of skin remains untouched and then pour honey over them and leave them for whatever predators find them. We will--"

The litany continued, fierce and creative and oddly reassuring. Gradually Tony relaxed, a warm feeling that he belatedly recognized as safety spreading through him. How long had it been since he'd felt that? It seemed like forever. Suddenly exhausted, he pressed a little closer to Loki and let his eyes drift shut, allowing himself be lulled back to sleep by the sound of Loki's voice promising pain and death to his enemies.

Powerful, erratic, sometimes-malicious entity or not, they were going to have a conversation once he was back on his feet, Tony decided. He wasn't sure yet what he was going to say, but he had a pretty good idea about how he wanted things to end. His last thought before sleep reclaimed him was that he was never, ever going to make an enemy of Loki.

The nightmares ceased.


End file.
